The First Roll of the Dice
by Eve Davidson
Summary: Penny deciding on that first day that she wants Sheldon.
1. Chapter 1

Penny knew all about geeky chic, and she wasn't quite the air head she pretended to be. It worked with her cute face and white blond hair. Dumb worked. And when you were cute and dumb people did things for you, people jumped to do things for you. What was smarter than that?

Penny knew the appeal of guys like Leonard and Sheldon, guys who were so smart you seemed to writhe and twist in the convolutions of their conversation. She actually understood a lot more of what they said than she let on, unless they were talking about theoretical or applicable physics, then she really was lost, but so was most of everybody else. She knew that they grew up like the nerds she had seen at her school, lonely smart kids who had their weird little interests and their weird little friends, kids who never dressed cool and never acted cool and couldn't play sports and got beaten up. She knew what that kind of childhood meant for the adult those kids became. She knew how needy they were and how eager to please.

It made her heart ache that first day she met them, the trepid way they said hello and asked her over to lunch. She saw how Leonard hid in those hoodies and baggy jeans, but Sheldon didn't hide the same way. She could tell he wore whatever he wanted to, and that was plaid pants and superhero T-shirts. She noticed how Leonard was immediately trying to reach out to her in his geeky way, using too many words and a funny tone of voice. She saw how Sheldon was merely going along, and probably wouldn't have bothered with her if it wasn't for Leonard. This intrigued her.

She liked both of them, and knew that at least Leonard would bend over backwards to please her, but it was Sheldon that she was watching out of the corner of her eye. He was tall and thin, and she liked tall and thin. His eyes were large and blue, and she could see how she might get lost in them. She liked the way he looked down, the awkward way he stood beside Leonard as he invited her to lunch.

The clincher was when she was looking at Sheldon's white board filled with formulas as foreign to her as hieroglyphics, and she asked if that was Leonard's work, and Sheldon jumped up and claimed it, stood beside the board with that shy look on his face. She knew exactly who both of them were the minute she saw them, and she knew they had the beautiful minds you might see in some movie character or read about in your text books. So she said it, "you're like those beautiful mind guys," and he bit his lip and looked down, but his eyes looked up at her. Pale blue with flecks of gray, beautiful clear eyes with such a sharp intelligence behind them that she felt her breath being taken away. She would have one of them, she was certain of that, but in that moment, Sheldon looking up at her beside the board, she knew which one she wanted it to be.

It was a game, and she knew that. It was an intricate game and she knew that neither of them really understood the rules, although Leonard might have a bit of a better idea than Sheldon. Sheldon might not even be aware that there was a game about to be played, one with many levels and fluctuating scoring systems.

As the afternoon wore on she realized that she had gone to school with plenty of kids like Leonard but that she had never met anyone quite like Sheldon. They were both smart, both geniuses, but Sheldon was smarter. She could see it in his eyes. When she sat in his seat and he told her that he sits there she patted the space next to her and said he could sit next to her. A normal guy would jump at that and sit beside her, his leg against hers, his hand brushing her fingertips. Even Leonard would have taken her up on that offer, sitting a bit stiffly beside her and clearing his throat, glancing over at her nervously. Not Sheldon. He slid his eyes to the side, looked down, and repeated what he had said. He sits there. He explained the reasons why that particular space was his spot, and she was about to slide over to ease his discomfort when Leonard took over.

"Just sit somewhere else," he commanded, and she saw that Leonard did that often, tried to control the OCD quirks that Sheldon had. So she watched him walk around the room, looking lost and uncomfortable, smiling a nervous tic of a smile, until Leonard gave him another command.

"Sheldon, sit!" He did, his knees coming almost all the way up to his chest he was so tall, and she could smell something like soap and light cologne, and she leaned into that smell.

She knew she could take a shower at their place and that she could ask them to go and get her T.V. from her ex-boyfriend because she was dumb and cute. She knew Leonard would bend over backwards for her and drag Sheldon along.

They returned from the T.V. expedition without pants, humiliated. Leonard wore common boxers, just light weight shorts. Sheldon wore white briefs that showed far too much, and he stood with his hands partially covering them, and she saw his slender but muscular legs. She didn't care about the T.V. because this was just a part of the game, her giving them tasks and them trying their hardest to complete them. It was the first roll of the dice in the game that would end with her in bed with one of them. When she hugged Leonard he leaned into her and she could tell he was inhaling the aroma of her hair. When she hugged Sheldon he tensed up and pulled away even as she had her arms around him. She knew at that moment that she wanted it to be Sheldon. She wanted her prize in this game to be Sheldon.


	2. Chapter 2

Penny sat in her apartment, letting the reruns wash over her with their comforting plots and laugh tracks. She didn't want to think about dropping out of community college in Nebraska, she didn't want to think about living in a one bedroom apartment and being a waitress at the Cheesecake Factory. How exactly would she become an actress? Just how far would her white blond hair and cute face get her?

She thought about the geniuses across the hall, not just smart guys, straight A students, but actual beautiful mind geniuses. She thought about those whiteboards they had and the equations scribbled on them that meant nothing to her, beyond nothing, but she knew it was those equations that had resulted in computers and space travel and mass production techniques and all the things that everybody took for granted and felt smart about, but only a handful of people across time were capable of comprehending it, and she lived across the hall from two of them.

She thought about Leonard and how dorky cute he was with his squinty little eyes behind the black rimmed glasses and his baggy clothes that he shriveled up in like a turtle hiding in a shell. She thought about how he jumped at her every request and told her the things he thought she wanted to hear. Then she thought about Sheldon. He was beautiful. Those large blue eyes, crystal clear blue eyes like water, like the sky. She thought of how his shoulder blades poked at the thin material of his T-shirts. She thought about how he told the truth in every instance, only amending it if Leonard contradicted him and gave him a look. When she asked to use their shower, asking if that would be weird, Sheldon immediately replied that it would be. When she cried and told them how awful her ex-boyfriend was but that she still loved him and asked if that was crazy, Sheldon had immediately replied that it was crazy. Leonard had said it wasn't, because he acquiesced and told her what she wanted to hear. But she liked to hear the truth for once. She liked to hear that things were weird and that things were crazy, she liked that someone could say it for once.

She shook her head, feeling sleepy, feeling used up still in her make-up and her uniform. But the T.V. was such a comforting drone and her eyelids were slipping, shutting halfway, and she didn't want to get up. Maybe tomorrow she could find an acting class and an agent, maybe tomorrow she could complete community college and go on to get a real degree, a degree like Leonard and Sheldon had. Who was she fooling? Her intelligence was no where near the level and scope of theirs, and she didn't know if she had the attention span any longer for school work, for classrooms and the professors' dry tones and the heaters that hummed and put you to sleep. What was she doing here anyway? It would be only a matter of time before she failed, before the rent skyrocketed and her pay did not, only a matter of time before she'd be forced to crawl back to Nebraska with her tail between her legs.

Her eyes closed, and she could feel the clump of the mascara, the weight of the blush that was on her cheeks. Maybe she could succeed in this endeavor, and maybe the waitress job was just her way of paying her dues. Maybe she could seduce Sheldon somehow, get him to gaze at her with those cerulean eyes. Who was she fooling? Sheldon barely noticed her, despite her skimpy clothes and her bedroom eyes and her shiny blond hair that feathered around her adorable face. What could she do to get inside his head?

She'd never encountered a boy who hadn't fallen for her immediately, who hadn't fallen all over himself to please her. They usually reacted the way Leonard had reacted. But she thought she liked it, she liked how Sheldon seemed to ignore her, she liked how he was wrapped up in his own interests. She liked the thought of the challenge of making him see her, making him desire her, making him fall all over her like every other guy.

She forced herself to open her eyes, to get up and snap the T.V. off, to wash the make-up off of her face and shed her uniform for her soft T-shirt and pajama shorts. She looked at her naked face in the mirror and saw the puffiness under her eyes and the darker roots at the top of her head. The perfect blond image was cracking, and what was underneath? Her real self? The community college drop out pursuing an elusive dream? The seductress ready to bewitch a socially inept genius?

She got into bed, sleep overtaking her before her head hit the pillow. The schedule at work mocked her, all the shifts she'd be forced to contend with, all the time taken away from her dreams. Could she fit acting around working at a menial service position? Could she fit seducing Sheldon around leading Leonard on? Would she play them against each other and come out the winner?


End file.
